Texas to Require Abortion Facilities to Bury, Cremate Babies Instead of Disposing Children as Waste

AUSTIN, Texas — The governor of Texas has directed state health officials to propose new rules requiring abortion facilities to bury or cremate aborted babies instead of disposing of children as medical waste.

“Governor Abbott believes human and fetal remains should not be treated like medical waste, and the proposed rule changes affirms the value and dignity of all life,” spokesperson Ciara Matthew said in a statement Thursday. “For the unborn, the mothers and the hospital and clinic staff, the governor believes it is imperative to establish higher standards that reflect our respect for the sanctity of life.”

Abortion facilities customarily contract with third party medical waste companies to dispose of the aborted babies, which are usually classified as “pathological waste.” The containers of aborted babies, mixed in with boxes of bodily fluids, tissues and other items that are not permitted to be thrown in the trash, are then transported to an incineration plant where they are burned into ash.

However, current Texas law also allows for other types of disposal, including “grinding and discharging to a sanitary sewer system,” “chlorine disinfection/maceration followed by deposition in a sanitary landfill” or other “approved alternate treatment process, provided that the process renders the item as unrecognizable, followed by deposition in a sanitary landfill.”

Sometimes abortion facilities fail to label the boxes for incineration and the children are therefore transported to autoclave sites where they are steam cleaned and dumped into landfills. As previously reported, the medical waste company Stericycle was fined $42,000 in Texas in 2011 for dumping fetal remains from Whole Woman’s Health in Austin with household and commercial trash.

“It was explained that medical waste is placed in red biohazard bags, then placed into boxes provided by Stericycle. Each fetus resulting from an abortion is placed into a hard plastic container and then into a red biohazard bag. The bag is then placed into a freezer, where it is stored,” an investigative report from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) outlined.

“When Stericycle arrives to transport the medical waste, the individual fetuses are removed from the freezer and placed into another large red biohazard bag. The red biohazard bag containing the fetuses is placed into the medical waste box along with other medical waste generated at the facility that requires treatment,” it continued.

Stericycle and other medical waste companies will now no longer be able to dispose of the babies when the new rules go into effect.

The Texas Health and Human Services Commission says that it has already crafted the new rules as per Abbott’s directives. It opened the regulations for a 30-day public comment period this month.

“The Health and Human Services Commission developed new rules to ensure Texas law maintains the highest standards of human dignity,” spokesman Bryan Black told reporters. “Public comment will be taken, and then the final rules are expected to take effect in September.”

Abortion advocacy groups are decrying the regulations, opining that they place a “burden” on abortive mothers.

“This is a new low for our state’s leaders who are committed to making abortion inaccessible and shaming Texans who have an abortion,” said Heather Busby, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Texas. “A person who needs an abortion will unfairly bear the burden of these new regulations and every abortion patient deserves to be treated with dignity and respect.”

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Grace Kim Kwon

Abortion is murder. It must get totally abolished by law.

Uzza

Should spontaneous abortions also be abolished?

WorldGoneCrazy

Natural death in the womb no more justifies the intentional killing of the human in the womb (abortion) than natural crib death justifies your suffocating infants in their cribs.

WorldGoneCrazy

Amen, Sister Grace!

Gena B

Wonder how this will go over, after all trying to find parts to bury, they will probably expect a raise for having to do more work. So sad.

Nidalap

Far too little and too late. Death has already been dealt…

james blue

So does this just mean it has to be incinerated or does the mother have to pay a funeral home?

bowie1

I assume it would be payed for by medical insurance if it is considered a “medical procedure.”

james blue

So just adding more expense, plus removing the right to privacy as funeral homes will not have to keep records private and no doubt a death certificate will be needed.

meamsane

“A person who needs an abortion will unfairly bear the burden of these new regulations and every abortion patient deserves to be treated with dignity and respect.”
But not the murdered children huh!? Their just trash right??

WorldGoneCrazy

“It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.” — Jesus, in Luke 17:2

StillMe

“A person who needs an abortion will unfairly bear the burden of these new regulations and every abortion patient deserves to be treated with dignity and respect.”

There are very few people who “needs an abortion.” The majority WANTS an abortion, not “needs” one. And the innocent victim of the atrocity of being burned alive or torn apart, limb by limb, do they not deserve “to be treated with dignity and respect?”

Uzza

Who’s getting burned alive?

Mellow Fellow

I personally know of three lives saved by abortion, myself included. And yes, my mother deserves dignity and respect for having an abortion to remove my twin sibling with a fatal defect. In fact, we both wish she had the abortion much earlier in the pregnancy.

http://www.bing.com/ Martin Smit

If you are never going to see the light of day, the very least they can give you is a share in a number on a gravestone.

jael2

All of these so-called humane gestures are folly. It appears that every political solution is revolved around methodology, rather than true substance. The immediate cessation of the pre-meditated murder of these innocent babies is the only answer.

Charles

This world is definitely getting better.. WE HAVE COME SO FAR! (Yes, it’s sarcasm). Be strong in the Lord.. More dark days ahead.

OlallaNicolasa

That is a wonderful start to trying to at least take away some of the pain and ugliness that surrounds the final departing of these unborn human organisms. It can’t make it all perfect, but at least i can say that I’m glad some people that actually got into politics are being mindful of societies need for respecting civility and decency

axelbeingcivil

If the governor took five minutes to consider for a moment how medical waste was disposed of, they’d discover it was almost universally via cremation already.

The Supreme Court already ruled that Texas’s laws exist for no purpose but imposition in something guaranteed to be legal. If Texas’s politicians wanted to do something to prevent abortions, why not actually do something that would make getting an abortion less desirable as an option? Provide better social services, guarantee paid maternity leave, guarantee insurance coverage of contraception, basically anything other than simply making it more difficult in a way that will be immediately challenged in court and struck down.

Mellow Fellow

It would be better if we could find a use for medical experiments. But after I die, I don’t care what happens to my corpse. Want to make it into a toboggan? Fine by me.

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